Frequently Asked Questions

WORKING WITH ME

  • I work with Australian tourism operators: the people running tours, experiences, accommodation, hospitality venues and attractions. Usually the owner is still in the day-to-day, knows the business should be making more than it is, and is paying more to the OTAs than feels right. If that sounds like you, we will get on well.

  • Neither, in the usual sense. I have spent over 20 years inside tourism as an operator, not a consultant. I have owned and run three tourism businesses, carried the risk, made the payroll, and paid the OTA commissions myself. So when we work together you get someone who has sat in your chair, not someone who studied the industry from the outside.

  • Two, depending on the size of your business. The Tourism Profit Program is twelve weeks of 1:1 coaching for operators turning over up to $1M. Business Improvement Coaching is the longer engagement for operators turning over $1M and above. Both are 1:1 with me, and both start with the Tourism Business Health Check.

  • I work with Australian tourism operators: the people running tours, experiences, accommodation, hospitality venues and attractions. Usually the owner is still in the day-to-day, knows the business should be making more than it is, and is paying more to the OTAs than feels right. If that sounds like you, we will get on well.

  • Neither, in the usual sense. I have spent over 20 years inside tourism as an operator, not a consultant. I have owned and run three tourism businesses, carried the risk, made the payroll, and paid the OTA commissions myself. So when we work together you get someone who has sat in your chair, not someone who studied the industry from the outside.

  • Two, depending on the size of your business. The Tourism Profit Program is twelve weeks of 1:1 coaching for operators turning over up to $1M. Business Improvement Coaching is the longer engagement for operators turning over $1M and above. Both are 1:1 with me, and both start with the Tourism Business Health Check.

PROFIT AND PRICING

  • This is the most common question I get, and the answer is almost always the same. You can tell me your revenue to the dollar. You cannot tell me which of your products is actually profitable once you account for the commission, the staff and the cost of running a smaller-than-average group. Busy hides a lot. When you look at profit per product instead of total revenue, the picture usually changes. That is where the work starts.

  • A few signs. You are busier than last year but the bank balance does not show it. You have not reviewed your prices in over a year while your costs have climbed. You do not know your true cost per booking by channel. You are paying 25% or more to the OTAs and you suspect it is costing you more than it is worth. If two or more of those ring true, there is profit leaking somewhere, and the Health Check is built to find where.

  • Know your numbers first. When did you last review prices, and what have your input costs done since? If your costs have moved 20% and your prices have not moved at all, you have been absorbing that out of your margin. Before you reprice, work out your real gross margin and your contribution margin per product. Then you are raising prices from a position of knowing, not guessing.

  • Very normal, and it is one of the first things we fix. Most operators track revenue closely and never get to product-level profit. So the popular tour everyone books might be earning very little once the guide, the commission and the fixed costs come out, and a quieter product might be carrying the business. Until you know which is which, you are making decisions in the dark.

OTAS AND DIRECT BOOKINGS

  • You do not cut the OTAs overnight, they bring you bookings you would not otherwise get. You shift the mix over time. First you work out what an OTA booking actually costs you versus a direct booking. Then you build the direct channels that move bookings across slowly: your website, your email list, repeat guest mechanics, local partnerships. At Aquaduck I shifted online sales from 4% to 47% of turnover. It took focus, not luck.

  • More than the commission line, once you add it up properly. There is the commission itself, then the discounting and the loss of the direct relationship with the guest. The number worth knowing is your true cost per booking by channel, side by side. Most operators are surprised when they see a direct booking and a Viator booking next to each other for the first time.

  • Start with the reason a guest would choose you over the operator down the road, and say it clearly everywhere. Then make your website easy to book, no more than about four steps, and ask every happy guest for a review. Build an email list and use it. None of this needs an ad budget. It needs a clear message and a bit of consistency.

  • Very normal, and it is one of the first things we fix. Most operators track revenue closely and never get to product-level profit. So the popular tour everyone books might be earning very little once the guide, the commission and the fixed costs come out, and a quieter product might be carrying the business. Until you know which is which, you are making decisions in the dark.

CASH FLOW AND SEASONALITY

  • Tourism cash flow is brutal because the costs do not stop when the bookings do. I suggest a cash flow tracker you look at every month, not once a quarter. Know what is in the bank and what is coming. Put your tax, PAYG and GST aside in a separate account every month no matter what, so it is there when the bill lands. And build a runway target so the off-season is a plan, not a fright.

  • Before you discount, build packages. A discount trains people to wait for the next one and chips away at your brand. A package adds value without dropping your price. If you run accommodation, bundle a few nights with an experience so you are promoting two things, not one. Local partnerships work well here too. There is almost always a way to lift off-season demand that does not involve slashing your rate.

MY STORY

  • Yes, three of them. Aquaduck Gold Coast, Aquaduck Sunshine Coast and Southern Cross Tours. I have done the early mornings, the payroll, the OTA commissions and the off-season cash flow. That is the whole point of how I work. I am not coaching from theory.

  • how dramatic that sounds.

    Before COVID I loved being in business. I loved the challenge and the growing. When COVID hit, it all changed. I was consumed with worry, the businesses were all I thought about, and my whole focus was making sure they survived on my watch. I took everything on, put too much pressure on myself and the people around me, and showed up fine on the outside while I was coming apart on the inside.

    I ran them for another year, then I knew something had to give. Nine months later I walked away. I tell operators this because the fragility I felt is structural in most tourism businesses, not bad luck. And it is fixable, which is the work I do now.

  • I have run the businesses. Most have not. Marketing a tour, a unique stay or a restaurant is not the same as marketing a product off a shelf, and running one is different again. I work in your real numbers, in plain language, on your business, not a generic framework. The structure I use is consistent. The conversation is always yours.

PROFIT, PRICING AND YOUR NUMBERS

  • Because most of those teach you how to get busier, not how to be more profitable. More bookings through the OTAs at 25% commission, on a product you have never costed properly, can actually leave you worse off. This work starts from the opposite end. We find out which of your products and channels actually make money, then we fix the economics. The marketing matters, but only once you know what is worth marketing. Busy was never the problem. Busy and not profitable is.

  • Most operators I meet are underpriced, and most are more frightened of losing bookings than they need to be. Start with one question. When did you last raise your prices, and what have your costs done since? Input costs in tourism have moved a lot in the last few years. If your prices have not moved with them, you are absorbing the difference out of your own margin.

    I suggest you work out your real margin per product before you touch a price. Then a small, considered increase, communicated well, rarely costs you the bookings you fear. Often it is the guests you most want to keep who notice it least.

  • No. If you were already across all your numbers, you probably would not need me. My job is to make the numbers clear in plain language, not to drown you in spreadsheets. We find your real gross margin, your profit per product and your cost per booking together, and I explain what each one means for your business. No spreadsheet theatre. You will understand your numbers better at the end than you ever have, without needing to become an accountant.

  • This is the differentiation question, and the absence of a clear answer is usually what forces a business to compete on price or lean on OTA visibility for bookings. I suggest you start with what guests actually say, in your reviews and at the end of a tour or a stay, not what you think your point of difference is. The real answer is often more specific than operators expect. We rework it together until it would survive being said out loud to a guest, and then it becomes the thing your marketing, your pricing and your team all line up behind.

CASH AND RESERVES

  • More than most operators are carrying. As a rough guide, I suggest aiming for at least eight to twelve weeks of runway, meaning the cash to cover your costs if sales stopped tomorrow. Tourism makes this hard, because the costs do not stop in the off-season but the bookings do.

    Let's say your monthly costs are $40,000. Eight to twelve weeks of runway means roughly $75,000 to $115,000 set aside. If you are sitting well under that, every decision ends up being made through the lens of cash, and that removes most of your options. Building that buffer is one of the first things we work on.

PRACTICAL

  • It depends on what we find, but most operators get clarity fast because we start with the numbers. In the Tourism Profit Program you will know your real gross margin and your profit per product inside the first few weeks. Acting on what we find is where the money is, and that is what the twelve weeks are for.

  • Yes. The coaching is 1:1 on Zoom, so where you are does not matter. I work with operators around Australia.

  • The Tourism Profit Program is $349 per session, twelve sessions, paid weekly. Business Improvement Coaching for larger operators is discussed individually after the Tourism Profit Review, because it is shaped around the business. The Health Check and the Profitability Clarity Call are both free.

  • Take the free Tourism Business Health Check. Ten minutes, online, and it tells us both where your business stands and which way of working together is right for you.

OWNER WORKLOAD AND SYSTEMS

  • Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons operators come to me. You are working six or seven days a week, every decision runs back to you, and there is no time to work on the business because you are too busy working in it. I have been there myself. The fix is not working harder. It is getting the numbers clear, deciding what only you can do, and handing the rest over with the systems to support it. In the Tourism Profit Program, week eight is built around exactly this, with the aim of giving you back at least five hours a week inside 90 days.

  • You give your team the few things they actually need to run a normal week, and you write down the handful of processes worth documenting first. Not a 200-page manual nobody reads. For me it usually starts with the three SOPs that stop the same questions coming back to you, plus clarity on who owns what. The goal is simple. A normal week should run without you answering every question. That is the difference between a business you own and a job you cannot leave.

THE HEALTH CHECK, THE CLARITY CALL AND THE TOURISM PROFIT REVIEW

  • It is a free, ten-minute online questionnaire, and it is where everyone starts with me. It asks about your revenue, your pricing, your OTA mix, your workload, your cash position and a few other areas. At the end it shows you where your business stands and where the biggest opportunities likely sit. It costs nothing and there is no obligation. For me it is also how I work out whether I can genuinely help you before we ever talk.

  • It is a 30-minute call with me, free, after you have done the Health Check. No pitch and no report. I have looked at your Health Check answers beforehand, so we go straight to what matters. I will usually tell you the one number worth fixing first in your business, based on what you have shared and one or two questions I ask on the call. You leave with a specific figure and a clear direction, whether or not we work together after that. That is the point of it.

  • The Tourism Profit Review is the deep analysis I run for established operators turning over $1M and above, as the first step of Business Improvement Coaching. I go right through the business: your product economics, your channel mix, your pricing, your team systems and your cash position. It includes a detailed questionnaire and market research calls I make personally with your own customers and suppliers, none of it outsourced. You get a full written analysis and a 90-minute walkthrough of what to fix and in what order.

    For operators above $1M it carries a guarantee. It will identify at least $60,000 in profit currently leaking from the business, based on your own numbers, or the Review is free.